


These Ghosts of Mine

by Rainboq



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Chloe is Still Attending Blackwell, F/F, I'm Bad At Tagging, Mute Chloe Price, Muteness, Visions in dreams, descriptions of dead bodies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:20:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27141665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainboq/pseuds/Rainboq
Summary: Dreams of death, terror and weird shit have plagued Chloe's nights since her Dad died and Max moved away five years ago. Dreams that she did her best to ignore... until some of them came true.Now, with Rachel missing and her last remaining friend growing distant after a Vortex Club party, Chloe is dreaming of Max... and, as if that wasn't enough of a cherry on top of this fucked up Sunday, an oncoming storm.
Relationships: Kate Marsh & Chloe Price, Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Comments: 60
Kudos: 38





	1. Recollections

The dreams are merciful tonight. No car wrecks with a mangled father, no Rachel’s pale corpse-like face.

Tonight she’s seven again, on the playground, minding her own business because nobody plays with the girl who can’t talk. Her sand fortress is shaping up nicely.

“You’re such a gross nerd!”

Her head snaps up to see if that was directed at her, it wasn’t. Instead there’s some younger girl, shaking and cowering in front of a taller boy with raven black hair and an angry face. She immediately decides that she doesn’t like him, or the two other boys standing next time him with dopey faces that are probably supposed to be intimidating.

The other girl doesn’t say anything, she just kind of shrinks away from his jabbing finger.

“What’s the matter mini Maxine? Can’t talk? You’re such a little freak!”

Her blood starts boiling as she stands up from her sandy bulwark, hands already balling into fists, thumb outside of her fingers like her dad taught her.

The girl tries to stammer something, but it comes out all garbled. So not like her then, but still having trouble.

“What’s the matter?! Speak up before I make you eat sand!”

Her feet start pumping, sand flying out from behind her.

The girl stammers again, wiping at her face with her arm.

The boy’s retort is cut off as Chloe’s fist pistons into the side of his jaw. The impact jars her arm as she sails into him, mouth open in a soundless battlecry. His two cronies take off running and she takes advantage of his surprise, tackling him into the sand. She gets a few more blows in before he can figure out what’s happening enough to defend himself.

Before the tables can turn, a whistle blows and she gets off him. The teachers might not have noticed the girl getting mocked, but they sure did notice the fight. It doesn’t take long for them to show up, and she watches the teacher start talking to that Maxine girl, who points at her, her hand shaking. The teacher nods and hauls the boy to his feet. “You girls stay there, I’ll be back and you’ll all have to go to the Principal’s office.”

Once they’re alone the girl stares wide eyed at her , and Chloe can’t help but marvel at just how blue her eyes are.

“W-who are you? I-I’m Max.”

Chloe makes to sign before remembering that nobody in this silly school knows how, so instead she takes her foot and drags it through the sand to spell her name.

“C-Chloe? T-that’s… I like that name.”

For some reason the compliment makes Chloe smile so hard her cheeks hurt.

“Ummmmm… c-can you not talk?”

Chloe nods, making a little criss cross sign over her throat. The girl’s eyes widen and she nods. “O-oh. Well i-it’s nice to m-meet you Chloe.”

She doesn’t even care that she gets detention that day. She finally has a friend.

The dream flashes forward a few weeks. She’s on the playground where she normally meets Max. The other girl is late and she’s worried. Max is all about routine, and Max not being on her routine means something bad is happening. She paces their little corner of the playground, eyes peeled for brown hair and freckles.

When she finally does see Max, she can immediately tell the girl is nervous and she pulls out the pencil and pad she normally uses to respond to Max.

She drops them when Max signs, “ _ Hello _ .”

After literally jumping for joy she half skips over to hug the smaller girl, excitedly signing to her. “ _ You can sign?! This is the best day ever!” _

_ “Slow. Slow. New.” _

Chloe finds herself laughing despite not making any sound, she’s just so happy. “ _ Okay! Okay! Slow! I’m just so happy!” _

_ “I’m happy… no.” _ Max signs, frowning as she tries to make another sign. It’s pretty obvious that she’s going for ‘glad’, but she can’t quite remember the gesture.

Once she’s close enough, Chloe signs,  _ “Help?” _

Max frowns before nodding and Chloe gently guides her hands along, her body tingling with excitement.

A few weeks later and they’re signing back and forth during recess like crazy. Sure, Max still mixes up her words, she’s using regular English sentence structure instead of ASL, but she’s so happy that she doesn’t care.

Everyone at school thinks that they’re the freakazoids and they must have megacooties or something. Good, let them stay away, it just means she can keep teaching Max in peace as they build their fortifications in the sand.

That day she also gets invited to her first birthday party ever.

She has no idea what to get for a gift, but her dad helps her out.

She’s the only one at Max’s party, but they don’t care. Chloe got them some pirate stuff for Max’s birthday and they spent all day playing together, making a mess of Max’s house and terrorizing the neighbourhood with their piratey ways.

It’s definitely the single best day of Chloe’s young life.

Middle school. A whole year without Max, without the one person she can actually have a conversation with. She stares at the doors on her first day and grits her teeth. She knows Max has it ten times worse. Bullies never bothered Chloe after she figured out that fighting them made them shut up. That’ll still be true in middle school, right?

“Sweetie…” Her dad’s voice is low and full of concern as he drives.

She would sign at him, but driving, besides, one of her hands is busy holding an ice pack on her swollen eye.

“I know you hate it when they make fun of you, but the boys there are starting to get dangerous to fight. And pretty soon you could get charged with something if you keep this up.”

She shuffles in her seat, her free hand clenched in a fist. She wants to sign at him as big as she can, to shout with her hands about what does he expect her to do, just take it?

But no, he’s driving and she needs to keep the ice in place.

“Your mom wants to ground you, you know. I’ll try to talk her into letting you see Max.”

Relief floods her chest and she uses her free hand to sign when they hit a red light. “ _ Thank you. I love you.” _

“I love you too pumpkin.”

The dream skips again to the worst day of her life. She watches the casket getting lowered, wishing she could scream out the feelings as something more than a rasp of hard air.

Instead all she can do is watch through the tears as her dad is confined to the earth and Max gets bundled away into their family vehicle.

She looks up to watch Max leaving, only to fall apart when Max signs from the back window. “ _ I’m sorry.” _

__

The Blackwell bathroom. There’s an older girl, things are hazy and fragmented like they are when she’s seeing something she hasn’t before. She sees a pink shirt with a doe, a butterfly and an old polaroid camera. The flash of eyes and freckles that she instantly recognizes.

There’s a storm big enough to swallow the entire bay whole, rain lashing through the air at painful speeds and those gentle, soulful eyes are full of fear and pain.

Her eyes fly open and she sits up, panting hard. Her head hurts like hell like it always does when she sees something new in her dreams. She’s drenched in sweat and she can taste copper. She grabs a tissue from her bedside and jams it up her nose to stop the bleeding.

_ What I wouldn’t give for that asshole to not have found my stash. Ugh, at least the bruises are healing. Why the hell do I keep seeing Max in my dreams? I haven’t talked to her in years. Maybe they’re being all fucked like the times I was in a wheelchair or I was trans. _

She blows a lock of hair out of her face in frustration as she gets up in the early morning. The clock reads some time after 5am, but she doesn’t bother to look at the minutes, she needs to journal this.

Chloe isn’t sure when exactly the dreams started, it was around the time her dad died and Max left. At first they were mostly memories of the two, then her dad started talking to her and that had been… horrific. Those dreams cost her graduating with the rest of her class, instead she was set back a year and only managed to go back to school the next year because her mom fought the principal to let her be able to learn remotely when she wanted to.

It was around that point that she’d started seeing flashes of someone new in her dreams. Mischievous hazel eyes, a smirk that made her weak in the knees and a blue feather earring. A few months later she’d broken into a concert at the old mill and met the literal girl from her dreams.

Then she’d started seeing visions of something really bad happening to Rachel, her ending up in the dirt, her face rotting. She’d tried to tell Rachel, even sketched out some of what she’d seen for her.

Rachel had only freaked the fuck out and started distancing herself. Chloe had decided to stop sharing her dreams with anyone after that.

In Junior year, she’d started seeing a dirty blond bun, a gold cross and a rabbit. A few days later Kate had introduced herself at school with broken signing, but Chloe hadn’t cared. Having someone else to sign with instead of using the crappy text to speech app on her phone had left her overjoyed.

She’d gotten so carried away and kissed the poor girl, she tried not to read  _ too _ much into how red her face had gotten.

Then Rachel had vanished and Chloe withdrew and started doing everything she could get away with from home. She hasn’t even stepped foot on campus so far this semester.

The guilt over making excessive use of her privilege to get her classwork done at home and stay off campus for the whole semester so far was real. Kate probably thought she was avoiding her, but she was really avoiding Nathan along with all the reminders of Rachel. She’d also seen him in her dreams, at some shithole bar that Rachel had shown her, flashing around cash she desperately needed to try and find Rachel.

Following that dream had been the worst idea she’d probably ever had. But she has no money to get weed off Frank with, so she couldn’t keep the dreams away and they make a long, restful sleep damn near impossible.

She shivers as her imagination runs wild what he was doing with that camera. She takes a deep breath and flips back a page in her dream journal as she finishes jotting down the dream and sketching out the imagery.

With that night’s weirdness documented, she flips back to reread her dreams about Kate. The guilt about avoiding her is palpable, but Nathan made wanting to get anywhere near campus difficult. They had been texting, but Kate was cagey and withdrawn lately.

She reread the dream notes. Something nasty had happened to Kate at a party, she wasn’t sure what, but she had  _ felt _ the wrongness. She’d almost shared that dream with Kate, but the girl had been so happy about the prospect of going to a party, and Dana was going to be with her so she should have been safe.

And it wasn’t like her dreams were always right, sometimes they were wrong or made no sense. But Kate was barely responding to her texts now, and last night she’d seen Kate falling from somewhere in a dream.

The bottom of the journal had a note to herself in big block letters: “Check on Kate.”

_ No more delaying it, I gotta go to fucking campus. _

She sighs soundlessly and flips the journal closed.  _ Why the fuck do I keep dreaming of Max? I literally haven’t heard a fucking word in YEARS, but I keep seeing her for some reason. It makes no sense. _

_ Then again, these dreams have never made any fucking sense. _

She quietly walked across the hall to the bathroom, turning on the tap and splashing some cold water on her face to get rid of the caked on sweat. She was going to have to have a shower before she left, but she wasn’t about to do that at five in the morning, plus Joyce needed the hot water more than she did anyways.

She pauses to look at herself in the mirror.

_ Fuck I’m a mess, I totally fucked up the re-dye and my roots are so obvious. I miss Rachel, she was a fucking pro at this. Maybe Kate will help? It went a lot better with her last time. Ugh, I look as tired as I feel. _

Her stomach gurgles for attention. She winces. The mustache is getting ready for work right now, so food means dealing with him.

It gurgles again.  _ Fuck fine. _

She heads down the stairs, careful to avoid the creaky spots in the floorboards. If she’s lucky then Asshole McPornstashe is doing something in the laundry room and she can enjoy an early breakfast of whatever is edible while cold from the fridge.

Her hopes are dashed the moment she pops her head into the kitchen. David’s eyes find her from the dining room table and she groans internally.

“Chloe.” He turns her name into less a greeting, and more a grunt of begrudging acknowledgement.

Chloe signs back. “ _ Hello.” _

She pushes down the temptation to add butt face to the greeting, but David had learnt  _ just _ enough sign language to know when she was mouthing off. He’d never bothered to learn enough to actually have a conversation with, he either made her write it down or talked with her through Joyce. Not that they had much to talk about. He’d been alrightish at first, just condescending. Then they’d gotten married and he started treating her like she was incapable of doing basic tasks.

Then he’d found her with a joint.

Just being around him makes her skin crawl, but what can she do? Joyce had basically thrown her under the bus when she’d gone to her for help.

She studiously does her best to ignore him as she surveys the fridge.

_ Fuck, I guess he ate the leftovers for breakfast, the prick. Guess I actually have to cook something. _

She grabs the ingredients for an omelet and starts heating a pan up.

David’s chair squeaks and she wheels around, her hand hovering close to the frying pan handle  _ just _ in case he decides to try something.

“Are you going to school today? You need to stop slacking at home.”

She rolls her eyes and reaches for the pen and notepad magnetized to the fridge. She hastily scribbles ‘I’m not slacking.’

The frown on his face tells her that he’s not buying it, but it’s actually the truth. He leans in, frown turning into a scowl. Her hand brushes against the pan’s handle as he speaks in a low, threatening tone. “Don’t you bring any more grass or your ‘friends’ into my house, am I clear?”

There are so many things she wants to sign at him, but it’s not like he’d even understand most of it, so all she does is scowl back at him.

He leans back, apparently satisfied and walks out of the kitchen. Chloe doesn’t move until she hears the front door open and shut, and then his stupid small dick muscle car drive off. Only then does she allow herself to sigh with relief and get back to the business of making omelets. She makes two, leaving the second on a plate covered with foil while she eats hers.

Just as she’s finishing up Joyce comes down the stairs. A smile crosses her face and she signs to Chloe. “ _ Thank you.” _

“ _ You’re welcome. _ ” Chloe sends back, her gestures small and subdued. If Joyce notices, she doesn’t comment, and Chloe gets up from the table and heads back upstairs. She plugs her headphones into her amp, grabs her bass off the stand and starts idly doodling away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thanks to GhostKiwi for the help with ASL, Meeble for the summary and to Blue and Lt.Dax for betaing.
> 
> This is something I couldn't get out of my head, so I wrote it instead of writing other stuff I'm procrastinating on. This probably won't update for a while as I want to finish some of my many projects, but I wanted to put this out there to see what people think, so let me know in the comments!


	2. Enter Kate

Chloe’s fingers fly over the frets, frittering away the hours until reasonable, not-plagued-by-crazy-dreams people are awake. When her phone tells her that it’s 7:30 in the morning, she turns off her amp and places her bass back on it’s stand before stretching out the results of a poor night’s sleep.

_ Ask not for whom the hot shower tolls, it tolls for thee. _

The scalding hot water helps relax her tense and weary muscles even if it makes her bruises ache. She lets her shower run long.  _ At least I know which dorm Kate is in, getting there without having to deal with Bitchtoria or her lackies will be the hard part. _

_ Should I text ahead and tell her I’m coming or keep it a surprise? I’ll stuff my laptop in my bag and get a bunch of homework done while I chill in her dorm. I definitely don’t feel up to classes, and fucking definitely not up to seeing anyone. Maybe Kate will agree to play later? I could load my bass and amp up into the truck if she’s down, but also I really don’t want to carry that shit around if she’s not. I guess I can just come back and grab it if she’s down to play. _

The hot water starts running cold and she shuts off the shower, quickly towelling herself off before heading back to her bedroom to just relax for a bit and steady her nerves before having to step foot back on campus.

_ Come on Price, you’re just going to go chill in Kate’s room all day, maybe go paint in the junkyard later or tomorrow, that project isn’t due until Thursday anyways. Fucking David, not letting me set up in the garage. Like I’d waste good paint on his shitty car. Shit, what if I do run into Nathan? Dude was fucking crazy before, I don’t want to know what kind of shit he’ll do if he sees me. I need some way to protect myself. _

_ I wonder how long it would take for David to miss one of his bajillion guns? _

As it turns out, taking a gun from David is easy as fuck. The lock on the safe is shimable with a piece of hard plastic from the garbage, she just does what Rachel showed her and it pops right open. She stashes the revolver in a side pouch with a zipper, makes sure she has her whistle, stuffs her beanie on and heads out to her pride and joy: the shitty truck she salvaged from the junkyard.

But even the joyful memory of her driving it home for the first time had a sour note to it: David explaining the basic mechanics she had learnt to get the fucking thing running in the first place like she was fucking five years old.

The drive to Blackwell is brief and in the early hours the campus is practically deserted. She walks briskly across the quad, hoping to avoid David’s dumbass face after he had demanded that she go to campus that morning.

Blissfully , she doesn’t spot him and she ducks through the door to the girl’s dorms. The sounds of a dozen young women starting their day fill the halls, mostly music coming from a few dorms. Most of them she knows, Dana, Juliet, Courtney, Taylor, etc. She doesn’t really care to check the nameplates of those she doesn’t know. She’s here to see Kate, she can meet all the new faces when she actually feels up to being in class.

She raises her hand to knock on Kate’s door, pausing for a moment as she hears the gentle refrains of an acoustic guitar coming from the dorm across the hall. The player is tentative, and a little sloppy, but they have heart. Like someone she used to know.

Knuckles rap on wood and there’s a few seconds of silence before the door opens and Kate’s tired, baggy eyes widen in surprise. Her hands sign in big, astonished gestures. “ _ Chloe! Hello!” _

_ “Hello!”  _ Chloe signs back, feeling a bit of warmth in her chest just to see her friend again.

_ “Come in!” _ Kate signs, stepping back into her dorm. Chloe doesn’t need a second invitation and she steps inside, closing the door behind her.

The dorm room in front of her looks nothing like Kate’s room had ever looked. Kate had always been neat and tidy, the room full of bright light and cheer. Instead there was gloom, things were strewn about haphazardly.  _ This is like my room… _

Chloe worried on her lower lip, unease and dread slowly filling her as she watched Kate shove some dirty laundry off her couch to make room for her. When she was done, she turned back to Chloe. “ _ Have a seat. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” _

_ “I wanted to surprise you, that’s all.”  _ Chloe signed back as she sat down.

“ _ Are you coming back to classes?” _ There’s a bit of excitement in how Kate signs, quicker than usual.

“ _ No, I’m not ready yet. I came here to check on you.” _

Kate nods slowly, her body sagging as she sits down in her desk chair. “ _ Oh. I’m… not doing great. That stupid video is ruining my life.” _

Chloe’s eyebrows go up.  _ “What video?” _

“ _ Right, you haven’t heard. Something bad happened at the party and I don’t remember it, but Victoria took a video.” _

If Chloe could growl, she would. She also feels a stab of grief in her gut.  _ Fuck, I should have warned her.  _ “ _ I’m going to kill her.” _

“No! Don’t do that just…” Kate blurts out.

_ It must be bad if she stopped signing back. _ “ _ What actually happened? _ ”

“I swear to god had  _ one _ sip of wine. Then I drank water, but apparently I started making out with people and have no memory of it!”

Chloe went rigid, her signing purposeful and rigid. “ _ What do you remember? _ ”

“I… I remember getting sick and dizzy, and then Nathan saying he would take me to the hospital.”

_ That MOTHER FUCKER. _ “ _ Kate, was Nathan anywhere near you between when you got your drink and that first sip?” _

_ “ _ N-no.”

“ _ Did he actually take you to the hospital?” _

“I… think so. All I can remember is driving for a long time, and then when I woke up a bit there were really bright lights and someone talking in a soft voice so I thought it was a hospital, then I felt a sharp sting in my neck and then just… nothing. I woke up outside my dorm room. There were no bruises or anything, but I felt  _ so _ gross.”

Chloe grits her teeth, trying to keep memories of her own ‘encounter’ with Nathan out of mind. “ _ Doesn’t sound like you went to a hospital at all. _ ”

“I-I…” Kate’s face crumbles and her head goes down into her hands. “Chloe, what should I do? My family and my congregation hate me!”

Chloe tentatively reaches out a hand, resting it on Kate’s shoulder with a featherlight touch. She leans into the contact a bit.  _ I can’t let her feel alone here, I don’t have to tell her about my dreams, but I can tell her what that fucker did to me. _

Chloe takes back her hand to sign, making a clicking noise with her tongue to get Kate’s attention. Kate’s head jerks up at the sound. “ _ Nathan drugged me. _ ”

Kate’s already pale face goes ghostly white. “W-what?”

_ “I found him at a shitty bar that didn’t card. He was flashing around cash and I needed the money for the whole… finding Rachel thing. I thought it would be easy but he was a step ahead of me and put something in my drink. I woke up somewhere at the Pan Estates and he was coming at me with a camera. I tried to kick hit but I hit a lamp instead and ran out.” _

Kate’s mouth hangs open and it takes her a few blinks to regain any semblance of composure. “S-so that’s why you’ve been staying at home.”

“ _ Yeah, if he did it to you and me then who knows what he’s capable of.” _

“Should… should we go to the police?” Kate’s voice is so nervous it makes her heart ache.

_ “Not the local cops, that’s for fucking sure. Besides, it's just our word against him right now.” _

Kate gives a deflated sigh. “What are we going to do if we can’t go to the police?”

_ “I’ll think about it. Do you mind if I just chill in your room and do some homework today? I’m really not ready to see anyone other than you right now and I’m going to think of something.” _

_ “Thanks Chloe,” _ Kate switches back to signing, flashing her a small smile.

“ _ We’ll get through this, okay? Nathan isn’t going to get away with it.” _

Kate nods.  _ “Thank you. Are you going to go back home?” _

_ “Is it okay if I stay in your room for now?” _

“ _ Of course. Is it okay if I bring someone by for you to meet? I think there’s someone here you’d really enjoy knowing.” _

The urge to say no was strong, but the little hopeful smile on Kate’s lips made her relent.  _ “Okay, after classes are done for the day though. I need some time alone to think about the whole Nathan thing.” _

_ “Sure thing. I’ll bring her by around 5:30.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to Blu for betaing! I just wonder who that mystery girl Kate is referring to might be, it's such a mystery. *covers up tags with hands*
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and let me know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> A special thanks to GhostKiwi for the help with ASL, Meeble for the summary and to Blue and Lt.Dax for betaing.
> 
> This is something I couldn't get out of my head, so I wrote it instead of writing other stuff I'm procrastinating on. This probably won't update for a while as I want to finish some of my many projects, but I wanted to put this out there to see what people think, so let me know in the comments!


End file.
